Schenkenschanz

Schenkenschanz is a small community in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany that was incorporated into the town of Kleve (Cleves) in 1969. Schenkenschanz is site of the former Schenkenschans fortress that was of significance in the Dutch Revolt.

Schenkenschanz is a village within Kleve and home to about 100 inhabitants (2013).[1] Most of its 38 hectares is not protected against flooding and part of a nature preserve. Schenkenschanz is located about 5 km north of the center of Kleve. Until 1972 it could only be reached by ferry service across the nearby old Rhine arm, while today the Kleve-Griethausen bridge provides a road connection.

The area of Schenkenschanz is subject to the influence of the Rhine river due to flooding, erosion, formation of islands and changes in the course of the river. Schenkenschanz had military significance when it was the point that split the Rhine river into two arms, the southern Waal and the northern Nederrijn.

Flooding by the Rhine in 1995 forced a complete evacuation of the village.

By the end of the 17th century Rhine water flowed more and more into the Waal while the Nederrijn at Schenkenschanz was sanding up. The creation of the Pannerdens Kanaal in 1701/09 repositioned the fork between the two rivers west to Millingen aan de Rijn and Schenkenschanz lost its military significance.

1.
North Rhine-Westphalia
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North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with a population of approximately 18 million, and the fourth largest by area. Its capital is Düsseldorf, the most populous city is Cologne, four of Germanys ten largest cities—Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, and Essen—are located within the state, as well as the largest metropolitan area on the European continent, Rhine-Ruhr. North Rhine-Westphalia was formed in 1946 as a merger of the provinces of North Rhine and Westphalia, the state has been run by a coalition of the Social Democrats and Greens since 2010. The Ubii and some other Germanic tribes such as the Cugerni were later settled on the west side of the Rhine in the Roman province of Germania Inferior, North of the Sigambri and the Rhine region were the Bructeri. By the 8th century the Frankish dominion was established in western Germany. But at the time, to the north, Westphalia was being taken over by Saxons pushing south. The Merovingian and Carolingian Franks eventually built an empire which controlled first their Ripuarian kin, the Ottonian dynasty had both Saxon and Frankish ancestry. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split into small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes. Such struggles as the War of the Limburg Succession therefore continued to create military, Aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine bulked largely in German history. Prussia first set foot on the Rhine in 1609 by the occupation of the Duchy of Cleves and about a century later Upper Guelders and Moers also became Prussian. At the peace of Basel in 1795 the whole of the bank of the Rhine was resigned to France. In 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium, around 1 AD there were numerous incursions through Westphalia and perhaps even some permanent Roman or Romanized settlements. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest took place near Osnabrück and some of the Germanic tribes who fought at this came from the area of Westphalia. Charlemagne is thought to have spent considerable time in Paderborn and nearby parts and his Saxon Wars also partly took place in what is thought of as Westphalia today. Popular legends link his adversary Widukind to places near Detmold, Bielefeld, Lemgo, Osnabrück, Widukind was buried in Enger, which is also a subject of a legend. Along with Eastphalia and Engern, Westphalia was originally a district of the Duchy of Saxony, in 1180 Westphalia was elevated to the rank of a duchy by Emperor Barbarossa. The Duchy of Westphalia comprised only an area south of the Lippe River. Parts of Westphalia came under Brandenburg-Prussian control during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, signed in Münster and Osnabrück, ended the Thirty Years War

2.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed

3.
Kleve
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Cleves, is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Cleves was capital of a county, today, Cleves is the capital of the district of Cleves in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The city is home to one of the campuses of the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Cleves consists of 14 subdivisions, Bimmen, Brienen, Donsbrüggen, Düffelward, Griethausen, Keeken, Kellen, Materborn, Reichswalde, Rindern, Salmorth, Schenkenschanz, Warbeyen and Wardhausen. The native name Kleff probably derives from Middle Dutch clef, clif ‘cliff, bluff’, since the citys coat of arms displays three clovers, the citys name is sometimes linked by folk etymology to the clover, but the corresponding Dutch word is klever. Notably, Kleve was spelled with a c throughout its history until spelling reforms introduced in the 1930s required that the name be spelled with a k, as of 2008, the CDU announced ambitions to return the name to its original spelling. The Schwanenburg, where the dukes of Cleves resided, was founded on a steep hill and it is located at the northern terminus of the Kermisdahl where it joins with the Spoykanal, which was previously an important transportation link to the Rhine. The old castle has a tower, the Schwanenturm 180 feet high. Medieval Kleve grew together from four parts — the Castle Schwanenburg, the village below the castle, the first city of Kleve on the Heideberg Hill, in 1242 Kleve received city rights. Kleves most famous native is Anne of Cleves, daughter of John III, Duke of Cleves, several local businesses are named after her, including the Anne von Kleve Galerie. The local line became extinct in the line in 1609. After the Thirty Years War, in 1648, the dispute was finally resolved with Cleves passing to the elector of Brandenburg. During the Thirty Years War the city had been under the control of the Dutch Republic and he approved a renovation of the Schwanenburg in the baroque style and commissioned the construction of extensive gardens that greatly influenced European landscape design of the 17th century. Significant amounts of his plan for Kleve were put into effect and have been maintained to the present. The mineral waters of Kleve and the parkland surrounding it made it a fashionable spa in the 19th century. At this time, Kleve was named Bad Cleve, Kleve has long since lost its reputation as a fashionable getaway, though tourism remains a significant factor in the local economy. During World War II Kleve was the site of one of the stations that served the Knickebein radio targeting system. Luftwaffe bombers used signals from Kleve and from another station at Stolberg to determine the exact location, the Knickebein system was eventually jammed by the British and was phased out and replaced by the higher frequency X-Gerat system using antennae located on the channel coast of France. Horrocks later said that this had been the most terrible decision I had ever taken in my life, many buildings were reconstructed, however, including most of the Schwanenburg and the Stiftskirche, the Catholic parish church

4.
Dutch Revolt
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The southern provinces initially joined in the revolt, but later submitted to Spain. The religious clash of cultures built up gradually but inexorably into outbursts of violence against the repression of the Habsburg Crown. These tensions led to the formation of the independent Dutch Republic, the first leader was William of Orange, followed by several of his descendants and relations. This revolt was one of the first successful secessions in Europe, and led to one of the first European republics of the modern era, King Philip was initially successful in suppressing the rebellion. In 1572, however, the rebels captured Brielle and the rebellion resurged, the northern provinces became independent, first in 1581 de facto, and in 1648 de jure. The Southern Netherlands remained under Spanish rule, the continuous heavy-handed rule by the Habsburgs in the south caused many of its financial, intellectual, and cultural elite to flee north, contributing to the success of the Dutch Republic. The Dutch imposed a blockade on the southern provinces which prevented Baltic grain relieving famine in the southern towns. The first phase of the conflict can be considered to be the Dutch War of Independence, the focus of the latter phase was to gain official recognition of the already de facto independence of the United Provinces. This phase coincided with the rise of the Dutch Republic as a major power, in a series of marriages and conquests, a succession of Dukes of Burgundy expanded their original territory by adding to it a series of fiefdoms, including the Seventeen Provinces. Although Burgundy itself had been lost to France in 1477, the Burgundian Netherlands were still intact when Charles V was born in Ghent in 1500 and he was raised in the Netherlands and spoke fluent Dutch, French, Spanish, and some German. In 1506, he became lord of the Burgundian states, among which were the Netherlands, subsequently, in 1516, he inherited several titles, including the combined kingdoms of Aragon, and Castile and León which had become a worldwide empire with the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In 1519, he became ruler of the Habsburg empire, although Friesland and Guelders offered prolonged resistance, virtually all of the Netherlands had been incorporated into the Habsburg domains by the early 1540s. Flanders had long been a wealthy region, and had been coveted by the French kings for a long time. The other Netherlands had also grown into wealthy and entrepreneurial regions within the empire, Charles Vs empire became a worldwide empire with large American and European territories. The latter were, however, distributed throughout Europe, control and defense of these were hampered by the disparity of the territories and huge length of the empires borders. This large realm was almost continuously at war with its neighbors in its European heartlands, most notably against France in the Italian Wars, further wars were fought against Protestant princes in Germany. The Netherlands paid heavy taxes to fund these wars, but perceived them as unnecessary and sometimes downright harmful, during the 16th century, Protestantism rapidly gained ground in northern Europe. Dutch Protestants, after initial repression, were tolerated by local authorities, by the 1560s, the Protestant community had become a significant influence in the Netherlands, although it clearly formed a minority then

5.
Hectare
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The hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to 100 ares and primarily used in the measurement of land as a metric replacement for the imperial acre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres, in 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1⁄100 km2. When the metric system was further rationalised in 1960, resulting in the International System of Units, the are was not included as a recognised unit. The hectare, however, remains as a non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI units, the metric system of measurement was first given a legal basis in 1795 by the French Revolutionary government. At the first meeting of the CGPM in 1889 when a new standard metre, manufactured by Johnson Matthey & Co of London was adopted, in 1960, when the metric system was updated as the International System of Units, the are did not receive international recognition. The units that were catalogued replicated the recommendations of the CGPM, many farmers, especially older ones, still use the acre for everyday calculations, and convert to hectares only for official paperwork. Farm fields can have long histories which are resistant to change, with names such as the six acre field stretching back hundreds of years. The names centiare, deciare, decare and hectare are derived by adding the standard metric prefixes to the base unit of area. The centiare is a synonym for one square metre, the deciare is ten square metres. The are is a unit of area, equal to 100 square metres and it was defined by older forms of the metric system, but is now outside of the modern International System of Units. It is commonly used to measure real estate, in particular in Indonesia, India, and in French-, Portuguese-, Slovakian-, Serbian-, Czech-, Polish-, Dutch-, in Russia and other former Soviet Union states, the are is called sotka. It is used to describe the size of suburban dacha or allotment garden plots or small city parks where the hectare would be too large, the decare is derived from deka, the prefix for 10 and are, and is equal to 10 ares or 1000 square metres. It is used in Norway and in the former Ottoman areas of the Middle East, the hectare, although not strictly a unit of SI, is the only named unit of area that is accepted for use within the SI. The United Kingdom, United States, Burma, and to some extent Canada instead use the acre, others, such as South Africa, published conversion factors which were to be used particularly when preparing consolidation diagrams by compilation. In many countries, metrication redefined or clarified existing measures in terms of metric units, non-SI units accepted for use with the International System of Units

6.
Nederrijn
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Nederrijn is the name of the Dutch part of the River Rhine from the confluence at the town of Angeren of the cut-off Rhine bend of Oude Rijn and the Pannerdens Kanaal. The city of Arnhem lies on the bank of the river Nederrijn. The Nederrijn flows on to the city of Wijk bij Duurstede, the once-important but now small Kromme Rijn branch carries the name Rhine towards the city of Utrecht. In order to regulate the distribution of drainage between the different branches of the Rhine, several dams have been constructed, if the dams are closed, there is little flow in the Nederrijn and most of the water drained by the IJssel. Bridges over the Nederrijn are in Arnhem, in Heteren and Rhenen, ferries are found near Doorwerth, Wageningen, Opheusden, Elst and Amerongen. In 1530, the Rhine near Arnhem was moved, a project that was completed in 1536, the city, which originated along the St. Jansbeek, could develop better now that it was closer the river, and was also more easily defended against Habsburg expansionism into Guelders

7.
Flood
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A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land which is usually dry. The European Union Floods Directive defines a flood as a covering by water of land not normally covered by water, in the sense of flowing water, the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods can also occur in rivers when the flow exceeds the capacity of the river channel. Floods often cause damage to homes and businesses if they are in the flood plains of rivers. Some floods develop slowly, while others such as floods, can develop in just a few minutes. Additionally, floods can be local, impacting a neighborhood or community, or very large, the word flood comes from the Old English flod, a word common to Germanic languages. Deluge myths are stories of a great flood sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution. Floods can happen on flat or low-lying areas when water is supplied by rainfall or snowmelt more rapidly than it can infiltrate or run off. The excess accumulates in place, sometimes to hazardous depths, surface soil can become saturated, which effectively stops infiltration, where the water table is shallow, such as a floodplain, or from intense rain from one or a series of storms. Infiltration also is slow to negligible through frozen ground, rock, concrete, paving, areal flooding begins in flat areas like floodplains and in local depressions not connected to a stream channel, because the velocity of overland flow depends on the surface slope. Endorheic basins may experience flooding during periods when precipitation exceeds evaporation. Floods occur in all types of river and stream channels, from the smallest ephemeral streams in humid zones to normally-dry channels in arid climates to the worlds largest rivers. When overland flow occurs on tilled fields, it can result in a flood where sediments are picked up by run off. Localized flooding may be caused or exacerbated by drainage obstructions such as landslides, ice, debris, slow-rising floods most commonly occur in large rivers with large catchment areas. The increase in flow may be the result of sustained rainfall, rapid snow melt, monsoons, the cause may be localized convective precipitation or sudden release from an upstream impoundment created behind a dam, landslide, or glacier. In one instance, a flood killed eight people enjoying the water on a Sunday afternoon at a popular waterfall in a narrow canyon. Without any observed rainfall, the rate increased from about 50 to 1,500 cubic feet per second in just one minute. Two larger floods occurred at the site within a week

8.
Dutch Republic
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It preceded the Batavian Republic, the Kingdom of Holland, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and ultimately the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands. Alternative names include the United Provinces, Seven Provinces, Federated Dutch Provinces, most of the Low Countries had come under the rule of the House of Burgundy and subsequently the House of Habsburg. In 1549 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued the Pragmatic Sanction, Charles was succeeded by his son, King Philip II of Spain. This was the start of the Eighty Years War, in 1579 a number of the northern provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other in their defence against the Spanish army. This was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the provinces from Philip II. In 1582 the United Provinces invited Francis, Duke of Anjou to lead them, but after an attempt to take Antwerp in 1583. After the assassination of William of Orange, both Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England declined the offer of sovereignty, however, the latter agreed to turn the United Provinces into a protectorate of England, and sent the Earl of Leicester as governor-general. This was unsuccessful and in 1588 the provinces became a confederacy, the Union of Utrecht is regarded as the foundation of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, which was not recognized by the Spanish Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. During the Anglo-French war, the territory was divided into groups, the Patriots, who were pro-French and pro-American and the Orangists. The Republic of the United Provinces faced a series of revolutions in 1783–1787. During this period, republican forces occupied several major Dutch cities, initially on the defence, the Orangist forces received aid from Prussian troops and retook the Netherlands in 1787. After the French Republic became the French Empire under Napoleon, the Batavian Republic was replaced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland, the Netherlands regained independence from France in 1813. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 the names United Provinces of the Netherlands, on 16 March 1815, the son of stadtholder William V crowned himself King William I of the Netherlands. Between 1815 and 1890 the King of the Netherlands was also in a union the Grand Duke of the sovereign Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. After Belgium gained its independence in 1830, the state became known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most urbanized region in the world, the free trade spirit of the time received a strong augmentation through the development of a modern, effective stock market in the Low Countries. The Netherlands has the oldest stock exchange in the world, founded in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, while Rotterdam has the oldest bourse in the Netherlands, the worlds first stock exchange, that of the Dutch East-India Company, went public in six different cities. Later, a court ruled that the company had to reside legally in a city so Amsterdam is recognized as the oldest such institution based on modern trading principles

9.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth

10.
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
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Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester KG was an English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth Is, from her first year on the throne until his death. He was a suitor for the hand for many years. Dudleys youth was overshadowed by the downfall of his family in 1553 after his father, Robert Dudley was condemned to death but was released in 1554 and took part in the Battle of St. Quentin under Philip II of Spain, which led to his full rehabilitation. On Elizabeth Is accession in November 1558, Dudley was appointed Master of the Horse, in October 1562, he became a Privy Councillor and, in 1587, was appointed Lord Steward of the Royal Household. In 1564, Dudley became Earl of Leicester and, from 1563, one of the greatest landowners in North Wales, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was one of Elizabeths leading statesmen, involved in domestic as well as foreign politics alongside William Cecil and Francis Walsingham. Although he refused to be married to Mary, Queen of Scots, Dudley was for a time relatively sympathetic to her until, from the mid-1580s. As patron of the Puritan movement, he supported non-conforming preachers, a champion also of the international Protestant cause, he led the English campaign in support of the Dutch Revolt. His acceptance of the post of Governor-General of the United Provinces infuriated Queen Elizabeth, the expedition was a military and political failure, and it ruined the Earl financially. Leicester was engaged in many business ventures and was one of the main backers of Francis Drake. During the Spanish Armada, the Earl was in command of the English land forces. In this function, he invited Queen Elizabeth to visit her troops at Tilbury and this was the last of many events he had organised over the years, the most spectacular being the festival at his seat Kenilworth Castle in 1575 on occasion of a three-week visit by the Queen. Dudley was a patron of the arts, literature. Robert Dudleys private life interfered with his career and vice versa. When his first wife, Amy Robsart, fell down a flight of stairs and died in 1560, however, the resulting scandal very much reduced his chances in this respect. Popular rumours that he had arranged for his wifes death continued throughout his life, for 18 years he did not remarry for Queen Elizabeths sake and when he finally did, his new wife, Lettice Knollys, was permanently banished from court. This and the death of his legitimate son and heir were heavy blows. Shortly after the death in 1584, a virulent libel known as Leicesters Commonwealth was circulated in England. It laid the foundation of a literary and historiographical tradition that depicted the Earl as the Machiavellian master courtier

11.
Bastion fort
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A star fort, bastion fort or trace italienne, is a fortification in a style that evolved during the age of gunpowder when the cannon came to dominate the battlefield. It was first seen in the century in Italy. The design of the fort is normally a pentagon or hexagon with bastions at the corners of the walls and these outcroppings are present for the purpose of a total, panoramic view of the battlefield. Because of the bastions, archers and cannon operators can hit any target on the battlefield without having to lean over the wall, many bastion forts also feature cavaliers, which are raised secondary structures based entirely inside the primary structure. The predecessors of star fortifications were medieval fortresses, usually placed on high hills, from there, arrows were shot at the enemies, and the higher the fortress was, the further the arrows flew. The enemies hope was to ram the gate or climb over the wall with ladders. For the invading force, these fortifications proved quite difficult to overcome, passive ring-shaped fortifications of the Medieval era proved vulnerable to damage or destruction by cannon fire, when it could be directed from outside against a perpendicular masonry wall. In addition, a force that could get close to the wall was able to conduct undermining operations in relative safety. In contrast, the fortress was a very flat structure composed of many triangular bastions, specifically designed to cover each other. In order to counteract the cannonballs, defensive walls were lower and thicker. The outer side of the ditch was provided with a glacis to deflect cannonballs aimed at the lower part of the main wall. They were built of materials, usually earth and brick. Star fortifications were developed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries primarily in response to the French invasion of the Italian peninsula. The French army was equipped with new cannon and bombards that were able to destroy traditional fortifications built in the Middle Ages. Star forts were employed by Michelangelo in the earthworks of Florence. The design spread out of Italy in the 1530s and 1540s and it was employed heavily throughout Europe for the following three centuries. Italian engineers were heavily in demand throughout Europe to help build the new fortifications, the late-seventeenth-century architects Menno van Coehoorn and especially Vauban, Louis XIVs military engineer, are considered to have taken the form to its logical extreme. In the 19th century, the development of the explosive shell changed the nature of defensive fortifications, elvas, in Portugal is considered by some to be the best surviving example of the Dutch school of fortifications

12.
Eighty Years' War
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The Eighty Years War or Dutch War of Independence was a revolt of the Seventeen Provinces against the political and religious hegemony of Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands. After the initial stages, Philip II deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebelling provinces, under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the northern provinces continued their resistance. They eventually were able to oust the Habsburg armies, and in 1581 they established the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, after a 12-year truce, hostilities broke out again around 1619 which can be said to coincide with the Thirty Years War. An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster, in the decades preceding the war, the Dutch became increasingly discontented with Habsburg rule. A major cause of discontent was heavy taxation imposed on the population, while support. At that time, the Seventeen Provinces were known in the empire as De landen van herwaarts over, the presence of Spanish troops, under the command of the Duke of Alba, brought in to oversee order, further amplified this unrest. Spain also attempted a policy of religious uniformity for the Catholic Church within its domains. The Reformation meanwhile produced a number of Protestant denominations, which gained followers in the Seventeen Provinces and these included the Lutheran movement of Martin Luther, the Anabaptist movement of the Dutch reformer Menno Simons, and the Reformed teachings of John Calvin. This growth lead to the 1566 Beeldenstorm, the Iconoclastic Fury which saw many churches in northern Europe stripped of their Catholic statuary, in October 1555, Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire began the gradual abdication of his several crowns. The balance of power was heavily weighted toward the local and regional governments, Philip did not govern in person but appointed Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy as governor-general to lead the central government. When Philip left for Spain in 1559 political tension was increased by religious policies, not having the liberal-mindedness of his father Charles V, Philip was a fervent enemy of the Protestant movements of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the Anabaptists. Towards the end of Charles reign enforcement had become lax. Philip, however, insisted on rigorous enforcement, which caused widespread unrest, the new hierarchy was to be headed by Granvelle as archbishop of the new archdiocese of Mechelen. The reform was unpopular with the old church hierarchy, as the new dioceses were to be financed by the transfer of a number of rich abbeys. Granvelle became the focus of the opposition against the new governmental structures, after the recall of Granvelle, Orange persuaded Margaret and the Council to ask for a moderation of the placards against heresy. Philip delayed his response, and in this interval the opposition to his religious policies gained more widespread support, Philip finally rejected the request for moderation in his Letters from the Segovia Woods of October 1565. This Compromise of Nobles was supported by about 400 nobles, both Catholic and Protestant, and was presented to Margaret on 5 April 1566, impressed by the massive support for the compromise, she suspended the placards, awaiting Philips final ruling. The first half of the Eighty Years War between the Spanish Empire and the Dutch Republic was fought between 1566 and 1609, when the Twelve Years Truce was signed in 1609, ending this first phase of war, the northern Netherlands had achieved de facto independence